[dropcap custom_class=”whb”]Today is the fourth day of our Eastern European journey. This morning we were schedule to pick up our car and start the driving portion of our trip. We had a quick breakfast at the hotel and then had the clerk call us a taxi to take us to the car rental place. We had reserved an automatic because I don’t know how to drive a manual transaction. I was never given the opportunity to learn to drive one of my father’s manual transmission vehicles and now I am paying for it. When you travel in other parts of the world, they prefer manual transmissions and you have to be sure and specify an automatic when making your reservations. The automatic transmission vehicles cost about twice as much to rent also. They gave us a Toyota Auris Hybrid car. I have never driven a hybrid car before. There is a button to push to start the car. Since it is a hybrid you don’t actually hear he engine start up. I then could not figure out how to get the car into gear. I had to go back into the car rental place and ask the agent if he could help me. He was very gracious and walked out to the car to show me how to start the car and get it in gear.
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I tried to get my GPS to work but for some reason it would not locate any of the addresses we typed into it. I finally just gave up and started driving. We drove around Vienna for a while until I spotted a sign that said Graz. That was the town we were supposed to be heading to so we followed the sign. we were just lucky we saw it.
The weather was cool and overcast when we started out, but at least it wasn’t raining. We drove for several hour and then we arrived in Graz. We wanted to go to the city center, but Jay and I do not have the best sense of direction. After driving around for a while I said to just forget it and for us to head to our next stop, Ljubljana, Slovenia. Before you enter Slovenia, you have to buy a vignette. We thought that we had to stop at the last town before the border and find a convenience store. So we got off the highway at a little town called Spielfeld. We did not find a convenience store, but there was a cow loose on the road with a girl chasing it and it almost ran into the car. I don’t know how I would have explained to the insurance company how we got hit by a cow. Anyway we did not find the convenience store so we got back on the highway. Right at the border is a little convenience store. We stopped there and I needed to use the restroom. The restroom or “WC” a they call it was out back. I was heading into the door when I hear some one calling me. I looked up and in a little booth right outside the bathroom was a lady and she said it cost .50 Euros to use the bathroom. I had to go really bad so i gladly paid. I remember thinking that they had a nice little racket going on there. I then went inside and Jay and I got something to eat and drink and we bought the vignette. They make you pay cash for the vignette. I was happy I had some Euros with me.
We made it to Ljubljana and my GPS was still not working, so I used the GPS on my iphone. I first asked it to find me and then typed in the address to the hotel and asked it to give us directions. Uing the Iphone’s GPS we were able to find the hotel. We never would have found it otherwise. The hotel is a small hotel, but clean. There is not elevator and we our room was on the third floor, but the desk clerk helped us carry our bags up the stairs. We then took a taxi into the city center, to find a restaurant to eat supper and to walk around. It was after seven so the stores were closed and it was too late to go to the castle. I ordered a hamburger and it came as a deconstructed burger. It was a pieece of bread that was covered with a sauce, lettuce, tomatoes and bacon. The hamburger sat on top and a spear stuck in the hamburger held potato wedges. I almost started laughing when he brought it out it looked so funny. But it tasted good. After dinner, we walked around some more and then took a taxi back to our hotel. Tomorrow we will go back into the city center and visit the castle, before heading on to Zagreb.
